Hillary Clinton on Libya Attack “It Was al Qaeda”

Now Barack Obama may be the only one in his administration who hasn’t called the attack of our mission in Libya a terrorist attack.

Attending a meeting at the UN today, Secretary of State Clinton attributed the deadly attack on the US Mission in Benghazi, Libya to al Qaeda in North Africa. Clinton is the highest ranking member of the Obama administration to publicly make the connection and her comments intensifies the spotlight on Obama himself, who refuses to make that connection publicly. State department officials backed away from Clinton’s comments a bit— saying the question of the terrorist connection can only be officially settled only after the F.B.I. completed a criminal inquiry.

Since SHE wasn’t invited on The View, Clinton attended a special United Nations meeting on the political and security crisis in the parts of North Africa known as the Maghreb and the Sahel, particularly in northern Mali, which has been overrun by Islamic extremists. Her remarks were made at that meeting. As reported by the NY Times:

“Now with a larger safe haven and increased freedom to maneuver, terrorists are seeking to extend their reach and their networks in multiple directions,” Mrs. Clinton told leaders assembled at the meeting, including President François Hollande of France and the United Nations secretary general, Ban Ki-moon. “And they are working with other violent extremists to undermine the democratic transitions under way in North Africa, as we tragically saw in Benghazi.”

Mr. Ban called the meeting to lay the groundwork for a possible international military intervention — to be led by African troops — to help the new military government in Mali re-establish control over a part of the country that Mr. Hollande noted was the size of France and is now under the grip of Islamist extremists imposing their vision of law and order.

“We cannot stand by and allow terrorists to take over an entire territory,” Mr. Hollande said.

The French president ignored the fact that terrorists have taken over all of Gaza, much of Lebanon and he supports them taking over Judea, Samaria and Jerusalem also .

The cooperation with other nations beyond Libya in the investigations also seemed to indicate that the attack’s planning and execution might have crossed international borders and not simply have been a local, spontaneous eruption of violence in response to an amateurish Internet video denigrating the Prophet Muhammad.

Shhhhh! Don’t tell President Obama that, he will get very upset.

“The United States is stepping up our counterterrorism efforts across the Maghreb and the Sahel,” Mrs. Clinton said, “and we’re working with the Libyan government and other partners to find those responsible for the attack on our diplomatic post in Benghazi and bring them to justice.”

Officials initially described the attack as a protest, though one administration official acknowledged what Libyan witnesses have said in interviews: that the attack was deliberate and organized. Five days after the attack, the American representative to the United Nations, Susan E. Rice, in an appearance on the Sunday talk shows, continued to describe it as a spontaneous protest, and it was only on Sept. 19 that Mr. Olsen of National Counterterrorism Center called it a terrorist attack.

During his UN Speech yesterday, the President blame everything on the video saying:

That is what we saw play out the last two weeks, as a crude and
disgusting video sparked outrage throughout the Muslim world. I have
made it clear that the United States government had nothing to do with
this video, and I believe its message must be rejected by all who
respect our common humanity. It is an insult not only to Muslims, but to
America as well – for as the city outside these walls makes clear, we
are a country that has welcomed people of every race and religion. We
are home to Muslims who worship across our country. We not only respect
the freedom of religion – we have laws that protect individuals from
being harmed because of how they look or what they believe. We
understand why people take offense to this video because millions of our
citizens are among them.

Today aboard Air Force One, press secretary Jay Carney, said the president does see the Libyan attack as terrorism (even if the president doesn’t say it himself. Carney defended the administration’s ever-changing description of what happened. “Over the course of the past two weeks, this administration has provided as much information as it has been able to. We made clear that our initial assessment and interim reports were based on information that was available at the time.” He didn’t mean information from evidence at the scene, Carney meant polling information. After all, for this president reelection comes before everything else.

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